ONTARIO — The Ontario Reign and San Diego Gulls play each other 12 times during the American Hockey League’s regular season.

It’s not enough.

And the farm clubs of the Kings and Ducks are going to add to that with another playoff matchup, a best-of-five first round pairing that was assured Saturday night.

Still not enough.

These rivals, I suspect, could play 30 times a season and it would leave us wanting more. That’s how delicious the enmity customarily is between them.

Ontario and San Diego faced each other for the 10th time this season Saturday night at The Vault, and the Reign completed a weekend sweep of the Gulls with a 3-1 victory, with Vincent LoVerde, Zach Leslie and Brett Sutter (into an empty net) scoring the goals and Jack Campbell stopping 27 of 28 San Diego shots.

This was one night after the Reign had clinched a playoff spot at the Gulls’ expense, 4-0 in San Diego. Each team has three regular season games remaining after this, and they conclude the schedule with another home-and-home, next Friday night at home and next Saturday night on the road.

The Gulls need one more victory to sew up home ice advantage in the first round. Yet Ontario, now 6-3-1-0 in the season series, might be favored in that best-of-five no matter where the deciding game might be scheduled.

The Reign is expected get at least three players back from the parent Kings, whose season ends Sunday night at Anaheim. Defenseman Paul LaDue and wingers Adrian Kempe and Jonny Brodzinski should return; the three accounted for 42 goals, 25 of them by Brodzinski.

That’s still the team leading total, by the way.

Reign coach Mike Stothers is curious to see the effect the NHL experience has had on those players.

“I hope (their games) remain ratcheted up nice and high and bring everybody with them,” he said. “Are they enthused to be back and contributing to us having a long playoff run? You never know. They’re young guys. They get caught up in the moment.

“They’re not on a charter eating sushi and shrimp. They’re on a bus eating a hoagie and a pizza.”

While the Reign is banking on reinforcements, San Diego is hoping to get some guys back. They had two guys fresh from juniors on their roster Saturday night, and have been dealing with injuries both on their club and in Anaheim, which resulted in right wing Ondrej Kase and defensemen Shea Theodore, Jaycob Megna and Brandon Montour all being recalled to the big club. Whether any or all of those four return to San Diego depends on the Ducks’ health going into the playoffs.

It’s hard to determine if there will be any carryover between these final four regular season games and the upcoming first round series. Heck, there was little carryover between Friday and Saturday nights.

The Friday night game, played before 12,071 at Valley View Casino Center, had the usual scrums and snarls that you expect from these teams.

It “kind of had a playoff feel,” the Reign’s Justin Auger said. “Almost from the start of the game it was different. Everything was a little more intense. The last five games of the season, you’re starting to get ready for playoff hockey.”

And it was particularly urgent for the Reign, which lost 5-1 in San Jose Wednesday night and then had a long bus ride Thursday to think about it and talk about it.

If Friday night’s game was intense, Saturday’s was almost tame by comparison, with none of the scrums or staredowns or fisticuffs you usually expect from these teams.

“I was surprised by that, actually,” Stothers said. “Last night, (rugged defenseman Stu) Bickel for them was spittin’ nails. Tonight he looked like he was getting his nails done. I love the guy; I think we could use a guy like him. But that’s how quiet he was tonight, and so was everybody else.”

Would these four late season games have an effect on the playoff series?

“Obviously, you could see they had a lot of young guys in the lineup, because they’re dealing with some of the same stuff with injuries as we are,” said Leslie. “At the same time the system stuff doesn’t change. … We’ve got to get used to what their tendencies are and try to expose those tendencies, and see if we can’t take advantage of what they do on the ice.”

Captain Vincent LoVerde said he thought things were starting to come around at the right time.

“We’re slowly starting to play the kind of hockey we want to play—get pucks in, go to work,” he said. “It’s good, because right around playoff time is when you want to be clicking, so we’re excited.”

They’ll be excited anyway when the opponent is the Gulls. Counting preseason games, they’ve already played each other 12 times. If the first round goes the distance, they’ll have played 19, same as last year.

Jim Alexander is an Inland Empire native who started with his hometown newspaper, The Press-Enterprise, longer ago than he cares to admit. He's been a sports columnist off and on since 1992, and a full-time columnist since 2010. Yes, he's opinionated, but no, that's not the only club in his bag. He's covered every major league and major sports beat in Southern California over the years, so not much surprises him any more. (And he and Justin Turner have this in common: Both attended Cal State Fullerton. Jim has no plans to replicate Turner's beard.)